A/N: I've made some edits to chapter 10 (Letters Across the Ocean 5) in regards to Alice's opera career. It doesn't change a lot in the grand scheme of things but the lovely beckmessering on AO3 pointed out that 19 year olds aren't exactly running around singing Brünnhilde (the peak of soprano performance), and helped me find a more appropriate opera for Alice to be performing at that point in time. I'm pretty happy with the results!


[Translated] Clipping from The Vienna Times Society Section, March 1942

... and if the social mixer invitation sheets of the past week have been any indication, it's clear that the Siren is back amongst society after her personal hiatus since the beginning of the year. The Siren has spent the last few months at a holiday resort in the French Alps, and this writer isn't alone in wondering what this means for the stage presence she'd cultivated under her uncle Joseph Huber's guidance. Vienna's performance halls could certainly benefit from her voice again, but the question remains: what is talent without a steady guiding hand? In further news, our society correspondent Simon Bauer speculates on the possibility of the normally shy Siren having found a new beau over the winter...


March, 1942

Alice first met her handler at a party.

She sat near the center of a dazzlingly decorated ballroom amidst a burr of conversations and laughter as she sipped a condensation-speckled cocktail. A gold-sequined dress pooled around her feet as she sat with her ankles crossed. She curved her mauve-painted lips and told a joke which had her retinue of tuxedoed men and gowned ladies bursting into laughter.

Her return to Vienna had been a whirlwind. On her return from her "sojourn in the French Alps", she arrived back to her uncle's – her – dust-laden house and dove back into the old social circles. She invited most of her late uncle's friends and connections over for tea as soon as she could, and found that she'd been sorely missed at parties and performances alike while she'd been away.

She'd been missed by others, too. The night returned she crept out into Vienna's alleys dressed as Al, and met Hugo at his apartment downtown. He'd wept when he slid open his window to see her standing in the alley below, and said I thought you weren't coming back.

Through Hugo and Vano, she found out that her network was stronger than ever. They'd branched out into a connection with the Polish resistance, which had militarized. The network in Vienna had lost people, though. Hugo's sister Marie had died of pneumonia in the winter. Others had vanished. Alice cried with her friends, but in the morning they all got to work again.

In the light of day, as Alice Moser, she strengthened all her old contacts in the music industry. She played coy, but within a few days everyone knew what she had returned for. The Siren is going to return to the stage and the radio waves, went the rumor, to honor her late, patriotic uncle.

She'd been working so long and so hard, day and night, that she was mostly able to keep her mind off the aching chasm in her chest for what she had left behind.

And now she was following one of her very first instructions from the SSR.

The event tonight was a social gathering for a politician's birthday, with all the big names of Austria and Germany. Alice could see no less than three major Nazi generals from her seat.

She hadn't come alone. She'd invited a retinue of her uncle's old friends who she intended to charm. She didn't have to try very hard. Half of them were middle-aged military officers and politicians who just needed a pretty woman to smile at them and laugh at their stories (being very careful not to alarm their wives too much, of course), and the other half were professionals in the music industry who wanted nothing more than for Alice to put out a new record. She'd been dropping hints in that regard all night.

And all night she'd had people from the music industry and the Propaganda Department approaching her left and right. More people than she'd expected.

The influx of interest had been explained to her by a Propaganda Department producer half an hour ago. Alice had agreed to a dance with him, and inquired politely about the latest in the Reich's music.

"All our artists have fled or gone quiet, the cowards," the flax-haired man had growled, his hand tightening on hers for a moment, before he realized that he might have come off a bit too strong. He avoided her eyes and led her off the dance floor a moment later.

Alice had taken a sip of her drip and turned to smile at him. "I'm no coward, I assure you."

Now, Alice sat back in her chair and held court over her retinue, barely paying attention to the nonsense she was speaking, and let her gaze drift across the room. Where is he? The night had been an exhausting, frustrating affair despite her successes in networking, and she wanted to go home. But this was a mission.

At that moment, she saw one of her old radio producers cutting across the room toward her with a man she'd never met before by his side.

Alice let her gaze slide disinterestedly over them and hid the thrill of energy that went down her spine. Finally.

She was talking to the general's wife beside her about stockings when someone cleared their throat behind her. She turned to find the radio producer smiling down at her.

"Fräulein Moser, it's such a wonderful pleasure to see you again," he reached out to take her hand. "I'd like to introduce an acquaintance of mine. This is Herr Otto Klein. We know each other from when I used to work in Berlin, Herr Klein was agent to many of the talented artists we hosted on the radio."

"Oh?" Alice turned to face the stranger. She was seated, but she could tell he probably stood about a head taller than her. He looked to be in his late forties, with a slight balding patch on the crown of his head, thick mustache, and serious dark eyes behind a pair of thick glasses. He wore a fine charcoal suit, nothing near the grandeur of the other wealthy tuxedos in the room, but he looked professional. He reached out to take her hand with a firm grip.

"A pleasure to meet you, Fräulein Moser," Otto Klein said with a quick incline of his head. "I have followed your career from Berlin for many years now. Your work from the spring of 1939 was my particular favorite."

Alice arched an eyebrow. "Even my Gipfel aria?"

He released her hand. "I found the melodies enchanting."

Alice affected a shy smile down at her lap at the exchange of codewords. "Say, gentlemen, why don't you take a seat here with me and my friends?"

Otto Klein and the radio producer took the seats recently vacated by a Gestapo official and his pregnant wife, and they all got to talking. They spoke mostly of what had become of German music, and the difficulties of booking talent in wartime. Most of Alice's retinue were connected with the music world in some way, so the conversation quickly became actually quite fascinating. Herr Klein was a serious, gruff sort of man, but it was clear he knew what he was talking about. He mentioned artists he had worked with before (Alice didn't have to feign surprise when he mentioned Marlene Dietrich) and he expressed a desire to support the Reich the best way he knew how: through music.

As the number of socialites in the ballroom dwindled, Alice rested her chin in her hand and said. "Herr Klein, I would be honored if you would visit my home for a cup of coffee or two tomorrow. Your stories about working in Berlin are fascinating, and I wish to hear more about your connections in Germany." She heard several of her retinue – producers who had been very obviously trying to have her sign a contract – audibly sigh.

Klein gave her a half bow from his seat. "Certainly, Fräulein." And that was all he said.

They spoke at their table for another half hour before Klein stood up to mingle with others in the ballroom. Alice waited another ten minutes, then announced that she was dead tired and off to bed. I've already met everyone interesting, she laughed.

In the car on her way back to her apartment, Alice rubbed her sore feet and thought of the future.


When Herr Klein arrived at Alice's house the next day, he came alone. His eyebrows rose slightly when Alice answered the door instead of a servant (all of her guests had been surprised at that), but he followed her into the sitting room with nothing but a word of greeting. Alice sensed his eyes travelling across the tapestries and oil paintings, the richly upholstered furniture and the thick carpets.

When Alice gestured for him to take a seat, he remained standing. "Are we alone, Fräulein?" he asked with a significant glance around.

She smoothed down her grey housedress. "I fired all the servants."

That made him scowl behind his thick glasses. "We'll hire some new ones." He brushed right past the moment. "You were briefed before you returned to Vienna?"

Alice nodded. Peggy had taken her aside at the port in Brooklyn to tell her everything they knew about HYDRA and give her mission parameters for her return to Vienna. Peggy had also shown her a photo of Otto Klein. I can personally verify his trustworthiness, Peggy had explained. I would not have been able to rescue Doctor Erskine without this man's assistance, and the SSR believes that by placing the two of you together, you have the best chance of success.

Alice trusted Peggy, but that didn't help with the wariness she felt about having this strange, surly-faced man in her house. Last night she'd been the Siren, smiling and charming, but that façade had dropped between them.

"Excellent," Klein said. "We need to move quickly since your recognition as an artist dies a little more each day that you don't perform, and we have much work to do. I hear you've a network here in Vienna?"

It was frightening to talk about so openly here, in the heart of it all. "Yes. And elsewhere."

"We'll get to work with them, too." Klein cricked his neck and reached into his briefcase to pull out a thick file of papers. At Alice's alarmed look he said: "Relax, this is all music details. I don't write anything else down."

He straightened his tie and began laying out papers on the sitting room table between them. "I've tentatively booked a spot for you this weekend at the Volksoper Wien, but after that we'll need to move. I'm thinking Berlin first, then a tour of Germany and Austria to cement your roots. That will give us the opportunity to lay out more of a network as well. We've been tasked with accumulating all the information we can about HYDRA's incursion into Norway and their next plans, and setting up resistance networks where we can: couriers will be especially important."

He was still moving. "I've got a dress fitting booked for you this afternoon and a recording studio for tomorrow morning. While you're at the dress fitting I have an appointment with the representative from the Propaganda Department-"

"Shouldn't I go to that as well?" Alice hadn't moved since he first began speaking.

He looked up as he sorted paperwork into piles on the table. "Why?"

She spread her hands. "They're our closest link to the German government hierarchy at this point. Oughtn't we both make friends where we can?"

He frowned. "This is a business meeting. We can make all the friends we need when you're singing in Berlin." With that he gestured to a single paper on the table. "Sign here and here to officially hire me on as your manager, and we can get started."

For a moment Alice thought of protesting. The pulse in her neck pounded. It was all too fast, she'd thought she'd have longer before being thrust into the limelight again.

But she'd read this man in the short time he'd been here. She didn't trust him (not even after the code words and Peggy's personal verification), but she could see that under the gruffness and haste he had the same drive to put a stop to all this. He didn't feel the need to prove himself to her. He just wanted to get to work. Alice could trust in that, for now.

So when he looked up at her impatiently she just nodded, leaned over to take his pen, and swirled out her signature on the papers.

"Let's get started."


The next few days seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Alice was rushed through a dress fitting that she barely paid attention to, signed more paperwork with Klein's company, hired staff to take care of her house while she was away, and began preparing new songs. The next morning on the way to the recording studio she and Klein levelled with each other about what resources they had at their disposal. Klein lifted an eyebrow occasionally as she described her network and connections (without mentioning names, of course), but other than that didn't express surprise. In return he told her about a small collection of people in Berlin opposed to Nazi power, and his connection to the SSR. He was a facilitator: hiding agents and fugitives, providing resources for missions, organizing information channels.

"I can see why they wanted us to join our resources," he said grudgingly.

Klein described his plan for the next weeks and months as they exchanged notes about music in an office at the recording studio. Everything he said made Alice's scalp tingle as she realized the scope of what she'd agreed to do.

"You've been a star for a couple of years," he told her. "Our job now is to make you an icon."

Alice appreciated his efficiency. The way he approached producers and musicians was almost ruthless, but she also realized as they workshopped songs together that he was a true creative. She observed him out of the corner of her eye, more habit than suspicion.

With Klein, Alice connected her network in Austria with the SSR's resources. They were still hiding and protecting people, but now they went after information with a targeted focus: have you heard anything about a group called HYDRA? What about troop movements through the Rhinelands? What's happening at the border to Switzerland? They also focused more efforts on sabotage through a few teams in the countryside who darted out of the night to disrupt and inconvenience the German army, before disappearing into the mountains. Alice and Klein set up cover stories for plants the SSR planned to send into Austria.

Within a week, Alice and Klein were on a train to Berlin. Sitting in a private cabin with a lapful of song lyrics, Alice's mind whirled with plans. They'd already begun setting up more of a network in Germany, and in Berlin they planned to arrange information couriers to Switzerland and France. Alice had realized early on that she was one of those couriers. Her role was to travel around, meet with people to learn what they knew, and carry it back to Switzerland and France. She'd already been put in contact with Austrians who had fled for London. The thought of it all was intimidating, but not overwhelming – because Alice realized she knew how to do this. She'd been training for this for years.

Peggy had also tasked Alice with training resistance members in sabotage, covert operations, and information gathering, and though she'd begun that process in Vienna it wouldn't really come up until they traveled to France.

Alice eyed Klein – serious, eyes on his paperwork – out of the corner of her eye as she mouthed the lyrics to her latest setlist. She'd written a couple of these songs on the ship over to France: not explicitly pro-Nazi, but definitely patriotic. One was an ode to a sweetheart far away, fighting a mental and physical battle but persevering; and the other was a rousing chorus about fighting to do everything one could. She'd drawn on her opera background for that one. Alice had gone to the effort to make them good. So many of the propaganda songs were like advertisement jingles: catchy, but not moving.

When she'd shown her ideas to Klein at the recording studio he'd raised an eyebrow, then given the go ahead to the band to learn the music. A song for the men fighting and a song for the ladies at home, he'd said succinctly after reading through the lyrics. This'll sell.

Alice had tried not to let it offend her, because that should be exactly what she wanted.


That evening, Alice and Klein talked over their plan to forge connections to HYDRA as an assistant (who doubled as one of Klein's couriers – about ten percent of his management company were SSR plants) flicked a makeup brush over Alice's face. Alice normally did her own hair and makeup for performances in silence, so sitting still and letting the young woman do it for her as Klein spoke put her on edge. They were squeezed into a dressing room bursting at the seams with costumes that stunk like cigarette smoke.

"HYDRA is secluded," Klein was saying, "they've been pulling back from the main German leadership since Schmidt's accident. Our best shot is to learn about HYDRA from other sources, as they aren't exactly going to many parties these days. That being said, I've heard that the German leadership is trying to coax Schmidt back to Berlin to reaffirm his loyalty."

Alice closed her eyes as the assistant – Heidi – swept an opalescent powder over her eyelids. "I've heard bits and pieces about them from other departments," she murmured. "And no, I don't think they're interested in blending with German society at all. I was intending to forge more friendships in the main German command before attempting to befriend them. What are your thoughts?"

"I agree," Klein said, though it was grudging. "We need more name recognition. I want every German child to know the name the Siren."

Alice shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and Heidi let out a hiss of breath as she darted to fix her dress.

"You mustn't crumple the material, Fräulein."

"Sorry," Alice muttered mutinously. She'd never worn a dress so irritatingly fragile before.

Klein watched her with his arms folded across his chest. He was reserved with his expressions, but Alice had been getting the sense he might not like her very much. She didn't mind, as long as he worked with her.

Alice met his eyes. "What?"

He cocked his head. "Your uncle loved the system too much to truly exploit it," he said in a lower tone. "You don't get to the top by brownnosing officials and catering to their every whim. You get to the top by giving them exactly what they've always wanted, but have been too afraid to ask for." He nodded. "Heidi?"

"I'm done, Herr Klein." Heidi drew away, makeup brush tucked behind her ear, and nodded decisively. "You can look now, Fräulein."

Alice stood, turned to the floor-length dressing room mirror, and understood.

Before, when her uncle had been alive, she'd fit into the mold. She'd worn performance dresses from the boutique stores that everyone else shopped at, had worn her hair and done her makeup as simply as possible because she hadn't cared what her audiences in Austria and Germany thought of her. It had been her voice that made her extraordinary.

But Klein and Heidi had transformed her.

Alice was dressed entirely in white: a floor length gown that flowed and fluttered with satin, with two wide sleeves that draped from her arms like wings. The dress clung to her waist, swooping down at the neck just enough to bare her pale skin but not so far that she could be accused in the papers of being unwholesome. The skirt parted from just above her knee to where it brushed the floor. Alice moved and the dress rippled, absorbing the white light from around the mirror.

Heidi had curled Alice's white-blonde hair, but not as tightly as Alice usually did it; her hair seemed to wisp about her face. And her face: her eyes were shadowed somehow in an indigo dusk that reminded her of the night sky. Her cheekbones seemed more prominent, with just the slightest hint of rouge to give her life, and her lips were a full, dark red that reminded her of Peggy. Her green eyes pierced from amongst the contrast of light and dark.

Alice was used to using her appearance to convince and distract, but she couldn't stop her mouth from dropping open at the woman in the mirror.

Klein had made her look untouchable. Strong. And utterly distinctive. She knew in that instant that there was no one else in the world who looked like her. She swallowed.

"You're on in two minutes," said Klein. He didn't ask her if she was ready.

Alice inclined her chin, resisting the urge to touch her hair to see if it felt as soft as it looked. She didn't look like this for her benefit. This was a weapon like any other.

Tonight, the Siren returned to the stage. Tonight would determine how far and how strong her and Klein's reach could be throughout Hitler's Third Reich. Tonight, Alice made her mark.


When the velvet curtain rose to reveal Alice to her audience, she heard a collective sigh. When the swastika banner rose red and vibrant behind her they rose to give her a standing ovation before she'd even begun. Dazzling light enveloped her.

Music swelled.

Alice opened her mouth and sang her audience into a tear-streamed silence.


Excerpt from article 'Siren Song: a snapshot of one of Europe's most prominent musicians' by Roger Howe, 1982

... in early April of 1942, the Siren returned triumphantly to the stage under a new management company, Klein Productions. Sources from the time indicate that her return was a much-desired breath of fresh air amidst mid-war austerity. One writer stated "Germany expects bigger and greater things from our magnificent songstress, who has reappeared like the sun after a long night". This marked the beginning of a new era in the Siren's career. She'd grown in talent and in shrewdness, and she'd reached a new level: no longer a student opera performer, or the shy and retiring belle of Vienna's stages, but a national and cultural icon.


Brooklyn

"She just left?" Bucky repeated for what must have been the sixth or seventh time since they'd arrived at the diner.

Bucky, Steve, and Tom sat at the counter in the nearly empty diner, each sitting with their cup of coffee but not drinking it. Tom leaned his head against his hand, looking tired, and Steve weathered Bucky's incredulity with patience. Bucky had only just gotten back on army furlough.

Steve had told him everything on the phone the night that Alice had left, and Bucky had had all these questions then, but he still needed answers. Steve got it. He didn't fully understand either.

Bucky made an expansive gesture with his hands. "Why?"

"She wouldn't say," Tom replied, then lifted his cup to take a sip. The thirteen year old looked older than he really was. "She knows it's dangerous, though."

Steve closed his eyes. He'd barely slept in the past three weeks since Alice had left.

Bucky shook his head. "Why would she do that? She was safe here, she could have started over again here. I know she wouldn't have had all the comforts she did in Vienna, but-"

"I think," Steve said, with his eyes still shut, "There's a lot she never told us."

He sensed Bucky's eyes on him. "Steve…"

Steve shook his head and opened his eyes. He half-smiled at his friend. Alice leaving had been eating him up, and maybe he was stupid for trusting in her so much, but Alice Moser loved him. He knew she wouldn't have left without a damn good reason. "I don't know why she left," he said. "But I think she'll tell us when she can."

"She promised me she would," Tom chipped in.

Bucky's eyebrows converged in a scowl. "How can you both sit there and just… just accept it? Maybe Alice doesn't know what's best, have you considered that?"

Steve shot him an affronted look, but Tom just looked amused.

"Even if she doesn't," Tom said wryly. "How are you planning on stopping her?" He gestured around. "She's probably back right now."

Bucky tugged his hair. "Could we talk to someone? The embassy, or… or-"

"Buck," Steve sighed. "Alice is going to come back."

"How d'you know that?"

I love you, Steve. "I just know."

That actually seemed to settle Bucky. Bucky had always known that Steve understood Alice in a way that he didn't. He loved her as his best friend, but she was a goddamn mystery and a menace most of the time.

He dropped his head on his forearms. "I just… I'm so confused." He looked up, and saw in Tom and Steve's tired eyes that they didn't have answers for him. "She really just up and left us all without a reason, huh?"

"Yep," Tom answered. "It must have been a good reason."

"The people," Steve said. They both glanced over to him and he met their eyes. "There's no way Alice would leave anyone alone in a corner with no way out. I might not know the details, but that must be why she went back."

"Let's just hope she doesn't back herself into a corner in the process," Bucky grumbled.

Steve barely heard him. He was already thinking about how he was going to get over there and help those people too.


Excerpt from 'Selling Fascism' by Catherine Bomer (2001), p. 12

Founded in 1933 (during peacetime), Joseph Goebbels' Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda) never sought to hide its intentions: to promote Nazi idealism and control throughout Germany and abroad. When Hitler became Chancellor, the Ministry had total control over the country's press and culture.

They sold the cult-like obsession with Adolf Hitler, and used every tool at their disposal to denigrate Jews and other minorities while bolstering the ideal of Aryanism.

The ministry had seven divisions: (1) Administration and legal, (2) Mass rallies; public health; youth; race, (3) Broadcasting, (4) National and foreign press, (5) Films and film censorship, (6) Art, music, and theatre, (7) Protection against counter-propaganda, both foreign and domestic.

Under Goebbel's meticulous planning and virulently antisemitic and anti-modernist leadership, the Propaganda produced a barrage of Nazi advertisements, radio shows, posters, music, theater, and films, using many prominent artists to further their cause. In 1940, John Gunther wrote that Goebbels was "the cleverest of all the Nazis", but would never become a true leader because "everybody hates him".


Berlin

"Truly, Fräu Siren, it was a true honor to hear you sing tonight. You have the voice of angels themselves."

Alice blushed at the praise and ducked her head in a laugh. "You know, I can never get used to such praise no matter how much I hear it."

The socialite who was still holding her hand smiled genially. "Then we'll have to praise you all the more, to get you used to it! You're a rising star, Fräulein."

Alice beamed and managed to wrangle her hand free.

It was another night, another party, drenched with light from the gas-lamp chandeliers and abuzz with conversation and clinking glasses. Alice was freshly powdered and perfumed after her performance for the gathered guests, and beginning her rounds. She'd been going to these kinds of parties for years now, but she no longer found herself bored and heartsick as the evenings wore on. She was focused.

Weeks had passed since her debut performance in the heart of Germany, which had launched her into the papers and into the eyes of the German elite as the new darling of the stage. Klein, true to his word, seemed to have turned her into an icon overnight. Her name graced newspaper headlines, her face was illustrated on a ten-foot tall poster outside the radio station, her latest records were flying off the shelves and into the homes of Nazi loyalists. It was the kind of recognition she'd secretly longed for as a child, but she celebrated it for completely different reasons now: this fame was a weapon.

Klein had arranged a formal relationship between the Siren and the Nazi Propaganda Department, securing a record deal and making her voice a regular fixture on the airwaves. She had security clearance now for buildings she hadn't had before. She and Klein were the toast of every party and social gathering they wished to attend across the Reich, which opened doors and mouths. They'd been travelling across the German heartlands, from performance halls to darkened back alleys.

Between the two of them, they'd set up a regular information funnel back to the SSR. They'd had little in the way of feedback – they were still setting up contact lines – but they'd been able to give the SSR information from within the heart of Berlin. Most of it so far was about the Russian front, which would no doubt be useful all the same. In the process Alice had found out that a fresh wave of Jews had been deported from the occupied Soviet Union territories and sent to… wherever they sent them. It wasn't information anyone could do anything about for now, but she made sure it was heard.

Alice had also kept up her correspondence with Tom, Steve, and Bucky. She hadn't told Klein. The boys (her boys, as she had come to think of them) were understandably somber and full of questions for her which she simply couldn't answer, so she distracted them with irrelevant (and sometimes fabricated) details from her life, and a million questions for them. They talked about the news, and school lessons, and music, and nothing important at all. Steve had taken to signing his letters differently: Love, Steve.

As Alice pulled away from the clingy socialite and continued to make her rounds of the room, she realized that one of Steve's latest letters was still at the forefront of her mind. He'd told her that just recently, the US Government had set up "relocation centers" and sent Japanese-American citizens to them by force. It was a paranoid, fear-driven reaction to Pearl Harbor, and reading Steve's description of it had made Alice's stomach sink to the bottom of her gut.

Steve was angry about it, of course, and had gotten in a fight with a police officer who came to notify the Takeyama family in his building. Bucky's black eye hadn't faded yet.

Alice had barely known what to say in reply. She wanted to say I thought things were different at home, which she knew they were, they had to be, but hearing about that had made her so, so afraid. What if this terrible reality she was living in now wasn't temporary? What if it had spread across the globe and there was no escape?

So she'd written to ask after the Takeyamas, and hoped that the boys were okay after their fight. About the forced relocations, she'd had just one thing to say:

We have to be better than this.

Alice swallowed at the thought of the letter and shot a wide, brilliant smile as an ambassador's wife complimented her performance. She let the woman introduce her to an SS officer – married to the second cousin of SS Obergruppenführer Heydrich, acting Protector of Czechoslovakia – Alice recalled from her research before the party, and warmly clasped the man's hand. One of her missions for tonight was to learn everything she could about Heydrich's movements for the SSR, though she suspected it was a different agency wanting the information. The SSR didn't have a lot of inroads in Czechoslovakia.

She chatted and made small talk, bringing up travel, which then prompted the officer to brag about his recent trip to Prague and his close relative Heydrich's house. Alice barely had to ask any questions, he was so eager to assert his importance. She absorbed everything he said, every minute detail about the length of the commute from Heydrich's house to Prague and their favourite restaurants and cafes in the city, with an almost-bored look in her eye.

"I'd love to visit Prague one day," she said when the man finally stopped for breath. "Are the roads safe?"

The man caught his breath and started telling her all about the precautions they had to take on the roads. As he spoke, Alice listened, and let her gaze drift across the room.

Klein was nowhere to be seen. She ground her jaw.

While Klein had worked wonders for launching Alice into the public eye, in their other work he had been… not exactly controlling, but excluding. He would go out to meet contacts by himself, and then just tell her what the plan was after it was all decided. He knew he needed her network, of course, and he at least let her handle that side of things, but he didn't put an ounce of faith in her.

Every step she made she had to run past him, every idea she had seemed to go ignored. Just last week she'd suggested that she meet (as Al) with a potential courier who had a regular route to Paris because of his delivery job, but Klein had flat out ignored her and handed her the latest performance setlist.

Alice felt frustrated. Because their work was good, and useful to the people who mattered, but she felt… held back. She'd been ignoring the feeling for weeks, because she knew that now was not the time for ego. She needed to trust the more experienced spy: he was her handler and her manager, after all.

But they'd arrived to this post-performance party together, and now he wasn't even here. Alice smoothed down her dress, the picture of poise, but her thoughts roiled. Klein hadn't told her about any special plans tonight beyond instructing her to ingratiate herself with the head of the Gestapo in Bavaria.

Alice understood the need for secrecy, but she didn't know if his being missing should ring alarm bells. Could he be in trouble?

The SS officer's wife came over and asked her husband to introduce her to the lovely young songstress. The conversation soon turned to music, and Alice didn't risk pressing further about Heydrich. She'd learned more than she'd expected to already.

After a few more moments Alice touched the officer's elbow (mindful of his wife's watchful eyes) and then whirled off to her next conversation. She'd been getting a reputation for being an attentive guest and host. People liked when she remembered their names. Alice was good with names.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a door across the room open, and looked over to see Klein and a young woman spill through, laughing arm in arm. Alice knew better than to stop and stare, but every ounce of her attention was on the pair, even as she signaled a waiter for another glass of champagne.

The woman was perhaps ten years younger than Klein, older than Alice, wearing a plain uniform dress and a smile on her dark lips. Klein's hair stuck up a little on one side, and the collar of the woman's dress was rumpled. They accidentally nudged a few guests by the door as they spilled through, then laughed as they apologized.

Alice greeted an old acquaintance from Vienna, careful to wipe the narrow-eyed look from her face. Because it was plain to anyone who saw what had happened between Klein and that woman. And Alice didn't believe a single bit of it.

She talked about the warming weather as she watched the woman part from Klein and slide across the room to an elderly gentleman, who Alice realized a moment later must be her employer. The woman dipped her head in a deferential nod, and the gentleman sighed knowingly before turning back to his conversation with a man in a SS uniform.

Back by the door, Klein flicked an impassive glance toward Alice, then flattened down his hair as he moved across the room to talk to a music producer she recognized.

Alice wanted to shake him. But she just turned her gaze back to her old acquaintance, and when he made a very poor joke she tipped her head back in a laugh.

The night wore on, measured in glasses of champagne Alice pretended to drink and her feet getting increasingly sore in her beautiful shoes. She made a promise to herself that if she ever survived this war, she'd never wear a pair of high heels ever again.

Before the performance Klein had tasked her with setting up a meeting with the head of the Gestapo in Bavaria, as he and his wife were in attendance. Alice had spoken with them a few times, building up familiarity, and she intended to circle back to them. But outside the ladies' room she'd overhead an interesting snippet of conversation about one of the ladies' beaus. So she'd befriended the lady by complimenting her shoes, and now they walked arm in arm to meet her friends.

The young woman took her to a circle of men and women up the back corner of the venue. From the look of them (and from what she'd guessed) they were secretaries and administrators, high up enough in the chain of command that the men were probably officers as well and they'd all merited an invite to the party, but low enough that they didn't feel comfortable mingling with the top brass.

The small group seemed a little starstruck by her at first, but Alice faux-whispered that she'd once been an office secretary (a lie, but not one that would be easy to disprove) and they instantly warmed to her. The conversation turned to the tedium of office work and how bosses didn't always know best. Alice chatted, and laughed, and was beginning to bring up a party she wanted to throw next week at the social hall near her hotel in Tauentzienstraße when –

"Fräulein Moser," came a low, measured voice from over her shoulder.

Alice turned with a pleasant smile that almost faltered when she saw Klein standing there with a smile on his face but a look in his eyes that she didn't like.

"Otto," she smiled, then gripped his elbow – maybe digging in a little bit, he could take it – and turned to face the group she'd been chatting with. "Everyone, this is my manager Otto Klein. Otto, this is Sara, and Georg, and…" she introduced him to all of them, and they bowed and shook his hand and were generally pleasant.

"A pleasure," he said when she was done, with a narrow smile to them all. He put his hand on Alice's back. "I'm afraid I have to steal the Siren now, many apologies." He sounded sorry, but his hand on Alice's back was firm.

Alice grit her teeth as she smiled. The group nodded and waved her off, and Alice allowed herself to be steered away. It was a startlingly familiar moment. Don't compare him to your uncle, she warned herself, though it didn't help her feel any less irritated. It's not the same.

"You must introduce me to your new friend, the SS Obergruppenführer and his wife," he said in a chatty tone.

"I must," Alice replied charmingly. She wanted to punch him.

But she led him across the room to the SS leader, and introduced Otto with effusive praise about how much he'd helped her and been her friend in her uncle's absence, and within minutes the SS leader's wife had invited them both over for tea on the weekend.

Alice and Klein spent the rest of the evening at the table with the SS leader and his wife, moving the conversation from Alice's performance, to her homesickness for Austria, to the man's work in Bavaria and his troubles with insurgents there. His wife ended up being chattier, and on a trip to the bathroom she confided in Alice that that awful Schmidt fellow had finally left his castle in Bavaria and she'd heard that he was off in exile somewhere, hopefully bothering nobody with his awful company. The SSR already knew this, but Alice gently pressed for details just in case. She did get something useful: Schmidt was definitely still at the base Hitler had gifted him for his exile. I'm sure, my husband got a telegram last week about it.

They returned to the men, and soon the SS leader and his wife had called for their car and made Alice reaffirm her promise that she'd come visit them on the weekend.

"Let's go," Klein muttered when they were gone.

It was a long, silent ride back to the hotel.


Back at the hotel, Alice didn't go straight to her room like she normally did. She stepped out of the elevator beside Klein, nodding to the elevator operator, and silently followed him to his room. He didn't speak. He opened the door, held it open for her, and followed her in. Alice spared a glance for the room – an ornate suite with multiple rooms, like hers – before turning to face him.

Klein seemed to sense her hidden, roiling frustration, because the instant the door closed behind him he faced her and crossed his arms. He looked imposing with that scowl on his face, illuminated by the yellow electric lamps. "What."

Alice took a breath to measure her tone. "What you did tonight was not acceptable."

He raised an eyebrow. "What? Completing the mission?"

Her jaw clenched. "If you would just give me an inch of leeway-"

He practically rolled his eyes at her. "There's no room for leeway, and I don't have time for your tantrums, Fräulein, not with all the work that must be done." He must have seen her eyes go hard and cold at that, because he gestured to her. "Oh go on then, get it all out."

"I am not your cover, Klein, and neither am I your pawn for you to… to move around the board without a say. If this is going to work we need to work together. You can't treat me like some unruly child-"

Klein let out a frustrated sigh and stalked past her, further into the room. "What, you need me to like you? Think that will help us undermine the Nazis?"

She whirled. "I don't care if you like me, I care if you have my back!"

"This isn't a game of loyalty, Ms Moser." He undid his cufflinks and laid them on the counter, as if this conversation wasn't worth his focus. "We are spies. Our every breathing moment is dangerous, and your desperate need to be reassured and included will only get us killed."

"Do you really think so little of me? I've made my choices, Klein, I've thrown my hat in this ring, same as you."

He poured himself a glass of whiskey. "Have you? Do you really think you could do everything it takes to bring about the end of this war?"

"I do."

He rolled his eyes and went to sit on the ornate couch.

Alice still hadn't moved from where she stood, too focused on forming the words to make him see, and containing her anger at him. But as he leaned over and began taking off his shoes, Alice realized exactly what he thought of her. To him, she was a convenience: a distraction and a ticket to where he needed to be to get his work done. Her fingernails dug into her palms.

"Don't you dismiss me, Klein," she said in a lower voice. "I might not be as hardened as you, but don't for one minute think that makes me some naïve songstress. You have no idea what I've-"

He finally looked up and met her eyes. "Go on then," he challenged. "What have you been through? What do you bring to the table, really? Because as far as I've seen, you're just an idealistic liar with a pretty voice." He sat back and crossed his arms.

Alice glared at him, narrow eyed, then took a deep breath. He'd managed to make her visibly angry. That didn't happen often.

"Very well." She drew herself to her full height. "Allow me to guess, for a moment, what your mission tonight was. You were at that mixer to shop me around as the latest big name in music, and you also wanted me to befriend the SS leader and his wife so we could get more information about HYDRA – because it would have been inappropriate for a music agent to approach them directly. But the Siren? No one would question that."

She spread a hand. "In the meantime, you also had a covert meeting with the personal assistant of the ambassador to Vichy France." His eyes narrowed. "Yes, I noticed. I can't imagine what you two could have spoken about, since you didn't warn me that you might go missing from the room, but if I had to guess I'd say the SSR is preparing for a covert incursion into France, and they want all the information they can get about the Vichy government." Klein's eyes narrowed further and Alice flicked a hand. "None of my business, though. You return from your meeting and see that your asset is apparently shirking in her one job for the night, so you come over and helpfully steer me back on task."

He raised his eyebrows meaningfully at her.

Alice took a deep breath so she wouldn't start yelling. "So that was your mission. If you'd stopped to talk to me, or just trusted me, as I apparently must trust you with your secret meetings, I could have told you that though I began tonight with one job, I ended up with more than I intended."

She cleared her throat. "Yes, I befriended the lieutenant general and his wife. I'd been doing so throughout the night, of course I hadn't forgotten. Excellent, I did the bare minimum, that's the best you can hope for, right?" She didn't bother to wait for him to reply. "I also spoke to his wife in the bathroom and got confirmation that Johann Schmidt is definitely still in his base, as of last week." She lifted a finger. Klein had opened his mouth – that was the most up to date information the SSR had yet about Schmidt's movements – but Alice just kept going.

"I also spoke with a relative of SS Obergruppenführer Heydrich, and I have a host of details about his daily life in Prague to give the SSR so they can pass it on." She lifted a second finger then cocked her head. "Now, what else? I can also tell you that Herr Fanslau from the Waffen SS is having an affair with a brigadier general's daughter. I've been invited to tea next week, that should help me figure out exactly whose daughter." A third finger. "The Chief of Staff who was at the party today has been paying for prostitutes in downtown Berlin. Probably worth speaking to them to see how loose his lips get." A fourth finger.

Alice went down her mental tally of people and facts from the night. She'd identified two SS officers who could potentially be pressed to provide more information, one political administrator who was prime material for manipulation, and three others who'd take a bribe. She usually kept these ruthless, calculating lists in her own mind, but as she stood on the carpet in Klein's hotel room she let it all spill out. She explained what she had learned and how, and how she had laid paving stones for further manipulation.

It might have felt like bragging, if the stakes weren't life and death. Alice never did this. She usually quietly passed on her information to couriers, or hung on to the more sensitive information until she spoke with a contact face to face, and never divulged it all at once like this. But Klein needed to hear this.

His expression remained inscrutable and annoyed, but she saw his eyes widening incrementally as she spoke. He wanted so badly to be unimpressed by her. She didn't want to impress him. She just wanted him to listen.

"And lastly," she finished, once she'd raised nine fingers, "that group of nobodies in the corner you dragged me away from? One of those men, Georg, is the direct secretary to the head of SS intelligence. In other words, the man who might have known more about HYDRA than anyone else in that room. And you completely blew my chances of learning more from him."

Klein's brows drew together and he held up a hand. "Okay I get it-"

"And what's more," she continued, incensed into a verbal rampage now, "I've been saddled with a handler who grew up as a poor, disillusioned boy from Hamburg who made something of himself and gained power and wealth to prove to himself that he meant something, until one day he realized he had a soul, and set out to help people." Klein shut his mouth and the annoyed look on his face dropped.

She barely paused for breath. She met his eyes directly. "A handler who believes in the theory that women are intelligent, capable beings, but is terrified to try it out in the real world. He's hardened himself to the world because he lost the things he loved and he's terrified of becoming attached to anything ever again."

She stepped closer. "A handler who's told himself he'll never trust again, because trust hurts. A handler who works as an agent for the most famous singers and actresses in Germany, and yet doesn't have the reputation for philandering that every single other agent does. A handler who doesn't look at the chorusgirls. Not even once."

She loomed over him where he sat on the couch and her shadow fell across his wide-eyed face. Alice reached out and jabbed a finger against his chest, finding the shape of a metal ring beneath his shirt.

"A handler who wears a wedding band out of sight," she said lowly, "because he'd be sent straight to a concentration camp if anyone knew who he truly loved."

She'd cut him to the bone. Alice saw Klein's expression raw and wounded for a moment, like a hardened, barnacled shellfish cracked open. For a few moments they just stared at each other – he practically sunken into the couch and she looming over him, with her finger to his chest.

Then the fight drained out of her all at once and Alice fell, exhausted, onto the couch beside him.

They were silent for a few long moments, breathing hard. Alice stared up at the ceiling's ornate plaster molding. The somber electric lights played across the molding, a light and dark landscape.

Klein broke the silence with a whisper. "How… how did you know?"

Alice shrugged. "I grew up in New York. Things like that aren't quite as shocking there, in some parts. And… I'm very observant."

"I can see that." His head rolled to the side to look at her. "I underestimated you."

Her eyebrows rose and she faced him. He looked years older, and his eyes were sad. "And I you. I didn't expect you to admit you were wrong."

"Consider us both surprised, then." He paused, and Alice studied his face. She had cracked something open inside him. For the first time she felt as if she were seeing the real Otto Klein: not a scowling, brusque agent but a man. He swallowed. "How did you know I was from Hamburg?"

"I've got a good ear for accents, though you try to hide yours." Her eyes flicked over his face. "And I know you don't need those glasses, either." She'd stolen them off his desk last week and tried them on. There was no prescription, just glass.

His mouth ticked up and he slid the glasses off his face to look at them. "This is how I avoided conscription to the army. Nearsightedness."

Alice's lips curved. She'd helped plenty of Austrians avoid conscription to the German Army. She hadn't thought of that. She watched the smile slowly drop from Klein's face, and then his gaze went distant.

Alice nodded to the ring hidden under his shirt. "Who is he?"

Klein's face darkened. "Was. He was a singer, like you. Romani gypsy." Alice's heart panged at the memory of Jilí. "We were going to leave together, back before Kristallnacht, but he went to go get his papers forged and…" he spread a hand helplessly. A moment passed. "He might still be alive." There was no hope in his voice. He said it like that was the worst option.

Klein's hand fell loose on the couch between them. Alice took it and squeezed. She didn't know what to say. She tried to imagine losing Steve like that, but her heart cracked at just the idea.

Eventually, she took a deep breath. "I'm not here to make friends. But, and you can call me naïve if you like, every human needs some light to stay alive. We need friends, we need hope, we need loyalty. Something to keep us going." She looked into his eyes. "Tomorrow, one of us may have to betray the other. Tomorrow both of us may be dead. But can we die as friends?"

He eyed her for a few long moments. Eventually he reached up to run a hand through his hair with a sigh. "Ach, why not. We're all going to die anyway."

"That's the spirit." She swallowed and then leveled him with a serious look. "I might not have been working for the SSR as long as you, Otto, but I have been undercover since I arrived in Austria six years ago. I know how to get information. I know how to make people do what I want them to. I know how to help the people who need help, without anyone knowing I was involved. Let me do my job."

He bowed his head and looked down at their clasped hands. His chest rose and fell.

"Alright then," he murmured. "Let's talk about this intelligence secretary."


What's up my dears, here's yet another OC ;) Don't worry, we're close to the TFA timeline now, I promise!

Shout out to Wikipedia for all the article facts in this chapter.


Reviews

Guest: Ooh, I'm definitely going to make you cry ;) Thanks for the five stars!

jul: I'm glad you enjoyed the last chapter! I too am a sucker for big Steve so don't worry, he's not far off now. Also it's great to see you're enjoying the Wyvern too! Hope school is treating you alright x